Community Innovation News - Christine Sculati's blog » nonprofit

The reinvention of two Bay Area museums

christine — Sun, 02 May 2010 00:52:01 +0000

For me an ideal museum experience is one that gives me the feeling that I am walking through history and gaining a better sense for the natural environment, art and culture of a particular place over time. This past month I had that experience in two distinctly different venues. Both are museums with bold plans to engage the public like never before.

The Oakland Museum of California
Underneath the terraced bunker-like appearance of the Oakland Museum lies three floors of exhibit space representing California art, history and the natural sciences. After two years of remodels to its history and art exhibits, the museum re-opened today with celebrations all weekend free to the public.

I recommend starting your journey in the Gallery of California History on Level 2. The heart of the exhibits here begins with a tule reed canoe, something commonly built by California’s first human inhabitants “before the other people came.” In this section devoted to Native American history, multimedia exhibits, including oral histories told by native Californians, give you a strong sense for the early way of life in California. From here you then walk through time witnessing and interacting with the transformation of California to the present day. The new design intentionally includes features to engage visitors and collect their personal experiences, potentially contributing to the future development of the exhibits.

Once you have strolled through California history, the Gallery of California Art on Level 3 will make much more sense. Here an oil painting tells the story of a time when grizzly bears were once abundant in California, until they were hunted to death. The last Bay Area grizzly bear was shot in Berkeley’s Strawberry Canyon in the 1870s. By 1922, California’s official state mammal was extinct in the state.

The natural sciences gallery on Level 1 remains closed. A giant-sized post card hanging outside a window on Level 2 writes, “Is paradise in trouble? Is Yosemite being loved to death? Find out when the Gallery re-opens in 2012.” This summer the gallery team will be looking for the public’s feedback on new exhibit ideas.

The Old Mint

While I had heard vague stories about San Francisco’s Old Mint, it wasn’t until I heard a KQED Quest story that I realized that the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society has big plans to revitalize the historic structure into the Bay Area’s first museum dedicated to San Francisco and Bay Area history.

This fabled structure located at 5th and Mission streets in downtown San Francisco was one of the few buildings to survive the 1906 earthquake and fires. You can find out why on a member tour. After the earthquake, the “Granite Lady” was also a rare place where city dwellers could find clean water. Springs that fed Mission Creek filled a cistern in the bedrock below the hulking building. Until city water mains could be repaired, the water collecting underneath the Mint was a precious commodity.

The Old Mint closed its doors in 1937 when the new Mint on Duboce and Market opened up in today’s Castro district. Until then, the Old Mint produced and stored coins. Today the City of San Francisco owns the building, which was sold as surplus by the United States government in 2003 for one dollar. The San Francisco Museum and Historical Society organizes museum events and is leading the Mint Project capital campaign.

The Historical Society has raised one-third of their $95 million goal to finance the renovation of the Old Mint into the first LEED certified National Historic Landmark in the City of San Francisco and California.

Since seismic retrofits have already been completed, the project’s mission is to transform the 19th century landmark into a 21st century, energy-efficient, mixed-use cultural center complete with a living roof, much like the one above the California Academy of Sciences. Two floors of the three-story building will have both permanent and changing exhibits with opportunities for the visitor to engage and interact with the region’s history over time, possibly similar to the Oakland Museum’s new layout. Of course, given its historical landmark status on the city, state and federal levels, they have a few hurdles to clear once the funds are raised.

For three weekends this month the Old U.S. Mint will open to the public. According to the museum’s website, “within the historic vaults of the Old Mint, we will explore the past, present and future of food and drink in the San Francisco Bay Area” in a special exhibit on the Bay Area’s Innovations in Farming and Food.

The reinvention of news in the Bay Area

christine — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 07:01:43 +0000

How do you get your daily news?
Today with the explosion of digital news sites, blogs and social media tools, community storytelling and information are more accessible than ever before.

According to new research by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Project for Excellence in Journalism, most Americans (92%) use multiple platforms (online, local and national television, print newspapers, radio, mobile devices) to get their daily news. Yet Pew Research also found that 70% of news consumers feel the amount of news and information available from different sources is “overwhelming.”

How can we discern what news and information are credible? Is there enough coverage of arts, culture, education, the environment and other civic issues in your community? Which distribution models and platforms will deliver rich content while remaining financially sustainable?

What does the future hold?

Amid the staggering losses of traditional news outlets and the layoffs of journalists reporting on local culture and public affairs issues, new nonprofit journalism organizations are emerging rapidly to fill the gaps. They are leveraging new digital technologies and community support to get there.

In an article published in the relatively new Bay Area section of the New York Times (published in print on Fridays and Sundays, online and on some mobile applications), Frances Dinkelspiel calls nonprofit journalism the “Bay Area’s new growth industry.” Yet, as she points out, nonprofit news organizations are not new in the Bay Area.

Well-established Bay Area nonprofit news outlets include KQED public media (founded in the 1950s), Mother Jones magazine (founded in the 1970s), the Center for Investigative Reporting (founded in 1977) and New America Media (founded by the nonprofit Pacific News Service in 1996). The nonprofit Bay Nature magazine, based in Berkeley, debuted in 2001. One of the founders of Bay Nature was Malcom Margolin, a recognized community leader and publisher of Heyday books (founded in 1974) and News from Native California.

While some of the established organizations have covered broader geographical areas, some of the newest nonprofit news organizations emerging in the Bay Area are focusing on community and civic news.

In the Bay Area, new ventures include the San Francisco Public Press and The Bay Citizen, which is set to launch on May 26, 2010 with a celebration at the Great American Music Hall for founding members. Built on a what is called a “crowd-financing model,” Spot.us is replicating its nonprofit model in other metropolitan areas including Seattle and Los Angeles. According to the project’s Web site, Spot.us “allows an individual or group to take control of news by sharing the cost (crowdfunding) to commission freelance journalists.”

Nonprofit sustainability
All of these nonprofit news organizations, old and new, rely on foundation funding, individual donors and diverse revenue streams, the goal of most nonprofit organizations. A few are membership-based organizations, a familiar concept to viewers and listeners of public broadcasting.

You may have already noticed that collaborations for content generation and distribution are becoming ubiquitous among nonprofit and commercial media. Just the other day, the San Francisco Chronicle published an article on gray whale migration by Jane Kay, a former Chronicle staff writer. The article was produced for DailyClimate.org, a nonprofit news service that covers climate change. I also recently read a San Francisco Public Press article published in the New York Times. And California Watch lists over 50 distribution partners on its website.

Community blogs are also rising rapidly. One good resource for finding locally-focused blogs here in the Bay Area is the BayNewsNetwork run by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and its Knight Digital Media Center. The site serves as a directory and aggregator of over 244 blogs and sites focusing on specific communities in the Bay Area region (called “hyperlocal”).

If you want to find out more about new initiatives and local projects working to reinvent journalism and public-interest news, this weekend you can attend the “Journalism Innovations” conference, produced by Independent Arts and Media, The University of San Francisco, G.W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism and the Society for Professional Journalists. On Twitter, follow the conversations with the #JI3 hashtag.

NPR reports on the massive mobilization for Census 2010

christine — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:16:17 +0000

On Monday I wrote a post about how nonprofit organizations, community leaders and foundations are collaborating to reach hard-to-count populations and ensure that their constituents participate in Census 2010. Several important campaigns are taking place in the Bay Area with the financial support of The San Fransisco Foundation, The California Endowment, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Foundation, James Irvine Foundation and other local foundations. In addition to grant funds, The San Francisco Foundation and The California Endowment are helping grantees to collaborate, strategize and track their efforts.

Yesterday, National Public Radio reported on how major national foundations have also launched intensive campaigns to reach the hard-to-count including the homeless and those who might be uncomfortable participating based on immigration status. National funders of Census 2010 initiatives include The Open Society Institute, Ford Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

As the NPR story reports, Voto Latino came up with innovative ways that link the popularity of the iPhone with young Latinos and incentives for filling out the census form. They developed an iPhone application for Los Angeles County that gives users the opportunity to win music and possibly a free concert if they learn about the census.

Listen to the NPR story:

Bill Moyers interviews Greg Mortenson

christine — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:20:46 +0000

Sitara Star School. Afghanistan. (Courtesy of Central Asia Institute)

In December, I found a tall stack of Greg Mortenson’s new book, Stones into Schools, in a local bookstore after hearing of its release. This book (currently #5 on the New York Times best seller list) picks up where Three Cups of Tea (a book that has sold 3.5 million copies in 41 countries) left off, yet Stones into Schools stands alone and tells a gripping chronicle of what it is like to bring educational opportunities to rural communities in war torn Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a story that weaves history, landscape and inspirational accounts of bravery and fortitude as Mortenson, his team and villagers work to do what seems, oftentimes, impossible.

Yesterday, PBS stations aired Bill Moyers in conversation with Greg Mortenson. In addition to illuminating the plight of the Central Asia Institute (CAI) and the new book, the interview gives you the chance to hear Mortenson’s views on the deployment of 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan, a decision President Obama announced on December 1, 2009. To this end, one of Moyer’s questions to Mortenson was: “It costs us a million dollars a year to keep one soldier there. That’s $30 billion for the new 30,000 troops. How many schools could you build with that?” Mortenson responded, with “$1 million we could build 30 or 40 schools. And in one generation we could have over 20,000, 30,000 kids educated.”

Not to miss, one highlight of the interview came after Moyers asked Mortenson about the “men who showed up in black.” Mortenson described their goal of building a girl’s school in a Taliban-led region notorious for opposing education of girls. In an effort to gain approval, he invited the province’s elders to one of CAI’s schools. Mortenson described the visit as one where men “armed to the teeth” spent an hour and a half playing on the schools swings and slides. During the show, they flashed a photo of these men swinging while laughing and smiling. Later, after gathering for a village meeting, the elders said: “We want to start this school. Of course we want the playground built first.”

Watch the video on the Bill Moyers Journal Web site and read the transcript here.

Simdara village, where Greg Mortenson and his team unexpectedly found children attending school in a building that formerly served as a pit toilet. Afghanistan. (Courtesy of Central Asia Institute)

Children of Bichik Khan, Buzzai Gumbad, Wakhan Corridor. Afghanistan. (Image courtesy of Central Asia Institute)

Social media for nonprofits: lessons learned

christine — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:22:57 +0000

Some nonprofit organizations that were early adopters of social media and others confused by the myriad options may not be using these tools to the best of their advantage.

Using Facebook as an example, some nonprofits set up Facebook “Groups” instead of fan “Pages,” the former of which might be limiting for those that want to create more visibility through the viral power of the tool. Other nonprofits set up only a Causes page to invite donations. The most problematic example relates to those groups that set up their organizations as individual people for you to “friend” rather than “fan” (I believe Facebook made changes in sign up to prevent this occurrence from continuing).

Mission-minded posts an informative blog post on this subject, which also links to a Wall Street Journal blog article on the benefits of setting up a Facebook fan page (“Page”) for your nonprofit organization instead of a group. The WSJ story highlights advice from Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who pointed out mistakes made by nonprofits at a social media conference in New York this past summer. Quoting the article: “Relying on groups, which have been available longer, is one of the biggest mistakes nonprofits make.”

To learn more from the experiments of others and the latest best practices in social media, there are many resources available to nonprofits. In fact, I just got an email from my friend and colleague, Kivi Leroux Miller, about a series of webinars she will host over the next month – from writing for social media to integrating your Web site, email newsletter and social media sites.

Other sources are listed in this blog post: The Explosion of Social Networking

Is your nonprofit newsworthy?

christine — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:59:49 +0000

If you have not discovered the Live Chats with The Chronicle of Philanthropy, you will not want to miss checking out some of their informative expert-led discussions on many subjects of interest to nonprofits – from fundraising and marketing to social media and media outreach.

The next topic is: Getting Good News Coverage: How to Persuade Journalists to Cover Your Cause on December 1, 9 a.m. Pacific Time.

For many nonprofits, a good way to get the attention of prospective donors, volunteers, public officials, clients and constituents is by building visibility through the media.

The moderator, Peter Panepento, and experts plan to cover:

How to get the attention of journalists in a competitive landscape
The most effective pitches
The most common errors nonprofit groups make when they approach reporters and editors
How to build productive relationships with reporters and editors

For the chats you can submit your questions in advance or follow along on with the conversation.

The Chronicle also maintains transcripts of past discussions. A few of my favorites include:

Creating Effective Marketing Messages with Nancy E. Schwartz, author of the Getting Attention blog
The Philosophy of Giving with Karen Ansara, co-founder of The Ansara Family Fund, a donor-advised fund at the Boston Foundation, and Anne Ellinger, co-director of Bolder Giving
Building Meaningful Alliances With Other Nonprofit Groups with Clara Miller and Thomas A. McLaughlin of the Nonprofit Finance Fund and Elizabeth Boone, artistic and executive director of Miami Light Project
Foundation Giving: What Might the Future Hold? with Bradford K. Smith, president of the Foundation Center
Shaking Up Journalism and Philanthropy with Alberto Ibargüen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
What’s the Payoff? How Charities Can Figure Out How Much Time and Money to Invest in Social Networking with Beth Kanter, social media guru

Obama’s pledge for social innovation

christine — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:55:07 +0000

On June 30, President Obama announced his pledge to support social innovation from the “bottom up.” As a community organizer in Chicago, he learned that the some of the best solutions exist at the grassroots level.

The president added that we need to bring the most promising community-based solutions to scale by expanding successful programs and developing other high potential solutions with a strong emphasis on measuring results and impact. “People don’t need somebody out in Washington to tell them how to solve their problems, especially when the best solutions are often right there in their own neighborhoods, just waiting to be discovered,” said Obama.

As reported earlier this year by The Chronicle on Philanthropy, the White House is looking for “new ideas” and “new models” but innovation does not necessarily imply new nonprofits or programs. “It’s about impact and effectiveness,” said Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. In Tuesday’s announcement, Obama said that he will be asking Barnes to travel across the country to “discover and evaluate the very best programs in our communities.”

The $50-million fund for social innovation is part of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The funds were authorized by the national service law in April 2009, but the funds still need approval by Congress in the fiscal year 2010 budget.

More coverage:

Update on Philanthropy This Week (audio)
Posted: Tue, 14 Jul 2009
Social Innovation Fund and Spending Down Your Endowment

Corporation for National & Community Service
Posted: July 2009
FAQ – Social Innovation Fund – Shows how and when to apply (PDF)

Fundraising: It’s all about relationships

christine — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:02:52 +0000

Last Friday I attended “Relationship Building: What We Can Learn from Alumni Groups.” Co-sponsored by Development Executives Roundtable (DER) and the Foundation Center in San Francisco, three panelists from Bay Area educational institutions talked about how they cultivated longtime donors through relationship building with program alumni. The insights they shared could apply to many nonprofits seeking to build a stronger funding base and support, especially those with alumni groups or memberships.

Moderated by Kelli Nakayama, a DER board member and grants manager for Children’s Hospital and Research Center Foundation, the panelists represented a diversity of Bay Area organizations:

Sue Merrill, Annual Giving Manager, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) - a large public educational and research institution
June Thompson, Executive Director of California Association of Student Councils (CASC) – a student-led nonprofit for youth leadership training with a staff of two
Patricia Cavagnaro, Director of Development, Immaculate Conception Academy – a 126-year old Catholic high school for girls in the Mission District of San Francisco

10 Tips for Building Relationships

Give program alumni, members and other supporters (volunteers, donors) multiple ways to get together because they will want to meet each other and see each other.
Send a regular e-newsletter and ask your constituents what articles they want.
Tell potential donors where their dollars will go. What will their contributions support? Be specific.
Ask beneficiaries of your programs or services to write thank you letters to donors, telling them how their support made a difference in their lives
Give beneficiaries multiple ways to “give back.” If you maintain relationships with beneficiaries, such as program alumni, oftentimes they will want to give back in the future.
Acknowledge donors to thank them for their generosity. Donor walls are a great way to do that. You can also think of creative ways to build and expand the wall over time (Immaculate Conception Academy came up with an innovative and creative solution).
Explore social media as part of your communications strategy, especially if you are building connections among supporters.
Manage donor/volunteer/alumni information effectively with constituent databases (Idealware article).
Use tools to capture best practices and manage institutional knowledge, especially if your organization relies on a large number of volunteers, peer-to-peer training or high turnover. CASC set up a wiki to support their elaborate transition process for volunteers. For help with wikis, Idealware published a how-to article called “Using Wikis for Internal Documentation.”
Thank and acknowledge. Thank and acknowledge.

How nonprofits can use storytelling to engage supporters

christine — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:28:08 +0000

Better Online Storytelling from NTEN's 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference

View more presentations from Roger Burks.

What does the new economic stimulus legislation mean for your nonprofit?

christine — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:23:21 +0000

The Obama Administration launched Recovery.gov as a way for the public to track spending and progress of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – also called the “Recovery Act” and the “Stimulus Package.” If you are interested in learning how that spending could relate to nonprofits or public agencies, a few good resources are already available. Many public agencies responsible for distributing funds to state programs and nonprofits, through grants and loans, have already set up Web sites.

Recovery Act Resources for Nonprofits

Zimmerman-Lehman – “The Stimulus Package: Is Your Nonprofit Receiving Funds (or Should It)”

Council on Nonprofits – Special Reports on Economic Stimulus & Recovery

The National Endowment for the Arts has posted grant guidelines for $50 million in Recovery Act grant funds.

Apollo Alliance – Describes how $113.5 billion will benefit “green-collar” jobs and training, cleaner energy, energy efficiency, high-mileage electric vehicles and renewable energy over the next two years.

National Recreation and Park Association – How the Recovery Act will benefit parks and recreation.

California State Water Board – $280 million for “shovel ready” projects in California that will create jobs immediately. At least 20% must go toward “green projects” – water efficiency, energy efficiency, green infrastructure, and environmentally innovative projects.

U.S. Department of Education – Overview and Implementation

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Overview and Grant Programs

U.S. Department of Justice – Including $1 billion to the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program; $225 million to the Office on Violence Against Women

Community Development Financial Institutions Fund – Including $3 billion in New Markets Tax Credits and an additional $90 million for the CDFI grant program.

U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services – Including more than $15 billion in federal assistance to help states cover the costs of Medicaid programs.

The Explosion of Social Networking

christine — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:23:27 +0000

Recently the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released a new report on how adults use sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. One of the report’s main findings was that the share of adult Internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years – from 8% in 2005 to 35% now, according to a December 2008 survey.

Overall they found that social networking is more popular for personal use than professional use, and most adults are using online social networks, like Facebook, to connect with people they already know.

Last week Facebook passed its five-year mark and now has over 150 million users (70% joined in 2008 alone). The company suggests that their rapid growth can be attributed to a safe and trusted environment where everyone can have a “voice to express ideas and initiate change.”

Several nonprofits in the U.S. are using social networking as a way to engage and inform constituents. Green For All, a nonprofit that promotes green-collar jobs and opportunities for the disadvantaged is on many social media channels, including Facebook, where it has over 3,500 “fans.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a nonprofit newspaper, is using the social networking site Twitter, a platform for sharing quick and short updates. Compared to Facebook’s 150 million users, Twitter, the younger of the two, has about 5 million members, and 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts open daily.

Resources for Nonprofits:

Philanthropy Front and Center blog: A map is worth a thousand words: Guest post by nonprofit technology strategist John Kenyon after a presentation at the Foundation Center in San Francisco on February 26, 2009.
Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media – Creating Your Organization’s Social Media Strategy Map
Twestival – Feb. 12 Twitter event in over 100 cities worldwide to raise funds for charity: water, a non-profit whose mission is to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Read the New York Times article.
The Pew Internet Project Data Memo: Twitter and Status Updating (6 pages, PDF)
Netsquared shares blogs, a Facebook group page and other social media to further its mission “to spur responsible adoption of social web tools by social benefit organizations.”
Nonprofits on Facebook
Facebook Group vs Facebook Fan Page: What’s Better?
The Chronicle of Philanthropy – How Nonprofits can Build Awareness and Raise Money with Facebook, Twitter and Other Social-Networking Tools (Transcripts of Live Expert Interviews) – Nov. 2008 and Feb. 2009.
Why every nonprofit needs a social media strategy | SPURspectives
We Are Media Project: The Social Media Starter Kit for Nonprofits
The Essential Guide to Social Media

Obama’s call to service and pledges to the nonprofit sector

christine — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:52:14 +0000

With the historic inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama less than a day away, communities across the country are responding to Obama’s call to service in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the legendary civil rights activist. In 1994, Congress transformed the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday into a national day of community service. This year, the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Presidential Inaugural Committee are using the Internet and social media to spread the word about how people can get involved. USAservice.org now lists over 12,000 projects, double the number from 2008.

As nonprofits nationwide respond to a higher demand for services while weathering an economic downturn, many in the social sector are hoping the national day of service will inspire volunteerism throughout the year. To that effect, nonprofits are working to help Obama expand national service while also holding the new administration to pledges for support. For example, in Obama’s Blueprint for Change, he pledges to create a “Social Investment Fund Network” that will use federal seed money to leverage private sector funding and create an agency dedicated to building the capacity, innovation and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector.

Tomorrow the swearing-in ceremony for the 44th president will begin at 8:30 a.m. Pacific time and will be shown live at venues throughout the Bay Area. Televised coverage also begins at 8:30am.

The San Francisco Chronicle lists broadcast venues, large and small. The largest viewing will be at Oracle Arena in Oakland, with a live broadcast and booths operated by community groups. This event is the culmination of 10 days of community gatherings called “Unity for the Sake of Change,” co-hosted by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

RESOURCES:

Martin Luther King Jr. Day events in Bay Area by The San Francisco Chronicle.

USAservice.org – Search for volunteer opportunities in your community.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy – How Barack Obama Can Help Charities Become Key Forces in the Economic Recovery

Obama’s Blueprint for Change

San Francisco Bay Area Inauguration Events

Martin Luther King Jr. Biographies

Nobelprize.org

Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr.
National Memorial

–

“Corporate Philanthropy in Turbulent Times” program on November 14 in San Francisco

christine — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:17:40 +0000

Every year the Foundation Center in San Francisco hosts a forum on regional corporate philanthropy trends in the Bay Area. In light of the state of the economy and possible fundraising impacts on the social sector, this is a good time to hear from corporate giving officers.

Representatives from Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Intel, and Cisco Foundation will present trends in corporate philanthropy and forecast their giving for next year and beyond. Some nonprofits are wondering if we will see impacts reminiscent of the economic fallout earlier in the decade, when giving portfolios shrank and competition for grants and charitable donations became fiercer.

Janet Camarena, the director of the San Francisco Foundation Center, will moderate the forum. She recently launched a new blog for the Center and has invited the community to post questions to the blog for consideration during the November 14, 2008 forum.

Co-sponsored by San Francisco Business Times and the Development Executives Roundtable (DER), this popular forum typically fills to capacity early.

Go to DER’s Web site to register.

The forum is free if you bring your own lunch, $12 for DER members and $10 for non-members.

UPDATE:
The Foundation Center’s video recording of this event is now available on their Web site.

Risk and reward in philanthropy

christine — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:01:16 +0000

It’s human nature to be adverse to risk-taking. But like successful business people, many social entrepreneurs believe you have to be willing to take risks to achieve progress.

A widely read example of risk and reward in philanthropy is the story of Greg Mortenson and his painstaking journey to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the New York Times bestselling Three Cups of Tea. With a typewriter Mortenson wrote 580 appeal letters to potential donors and 16 grant applications in an attempt to raise $12,000, the minimum he needed to fulfill a promise and build a school in a remote alpine village in Pakistan. While his appeals were largely a failure, the difference came with one individual who read a newsletter article about Mortensen’s personal mission, took a risk, and moved fast – agreeing to fully fund the school. Dr. Jean Hoerni made the decision to fund the project after one phone call and Mortenson’s word that he would “not to screw up.”

In the San Francisco Bay Area, another philanthropist embraces the idea of risk-taking in grantmaking. In a new book, Bill Somerville, president of the Bay Area Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF), makes the case that grantmakers should take risks to reap the highest rewards for their investments. Somerville recounts several stories of how a little risk went along way in transforming individual lives and communities – from juvenile courts to classrooms. Published by Berkeley-based Heyday Books, his new book with Fred Setterberg is titled “Grassroots Philanthropy, Field Notes of a Maverick Grantmaker.”

In Grassroots Philanthropy Somerville advocates that grantmakers should find and fund outstanding people, eliminate bureaucracy in favor of moving quickly, focus on ideas and not problems and take risk and initiative. While Somerville’s approach to grantmaking may not be for every foundation, it makes sense for the grassroots as the book title implies. By definition, grassroots movements move quickly and are driven by effective leaders doing hands-on work at the community level. Many of these individuals cannot afford to get bogged down in time-consuming and costly application processes.

In the case of Mortenson’s plight to build schools, a donor’s risk-taking led to the formation of the Central Asia Institute, which has now established 64 schools in remote and underserved regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The remote schools have educated over 25,000 children and have provided unprecedented opportunities for girls.

For Somerville and the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation 17 years of nonconformist approaches to grassroots grantmaking have attracted several prominent California foundations as supporters including The California Endowment, David & Lucile Packard Foundation, Flora Family Foundation, Herbst Foundation, and the San Francisco Foundation, among others.

Bay Nature launches new Web site

christine — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:37:16 +0000

Now in its eighth year of publication, Berkeley-based Bay Nature magazine recently announced the launch of a new content-rich Web site (baynature.org). While many nonprofits have good stories to tell, Bay Nature now has over 700.

The concept of Bay Nature magazine began as a conversation in 1997 between publisher David Loeb and Malcolm Margolin, author of the much-admired Ohlone Way and founder of Heyday Books in Berkeley. With seed funding from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation and other local funders, the inaugural issue covered by a majestic great blue heron photograph hit local magazine racks in January 2001. Now, just over ten years after that initial conversation, the magazine is one of four programs that make up the nonprofit Bay Nature Institute.